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Francesco Larderel developed an evaporation process that used the heat from geothermal waters to evaporate the thermal waters found in the area, leaving boric acid.
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The first dry steam geothermal power plant was built in Laderello in Tuscany, Italy.
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The first commercial-scale development tools were placed in California, a 10-megawatt unit owned by Pacific Gas & Electric.
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The first commercial-scale development tools were placed in California, a 10-megawatt unit owned by Pacific Gas & Electric.
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Re-injection of spent geothermal water back into the production reservoir was introduced as a way to get rid of waste water and to expand reservoir life.
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improved technology led to acess to more resources
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Scientists began to develop the first hot dry rock (HDR) reservoir at Fenton Hill, New Mexico. the facility was tested in 1978 and started generating electricity two years later
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The first commercial-scale binary plant in the United States began operation in Southern California’s Imperial Valley.
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Geothermal (hydrothermal) electric generating capacity, reached a new high of 1,000 megawatts.
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funding for geothermal energy research and development declined throughout the 1980s and reached a low of $15 million.
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California Energy became the world’s largest geothermal company through its acquisition of Magma Power.
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Worldwide geothermal capacity reached 6,000 megawatts.
A DOE low-temperature resource assessment of 10 Western States identified nearly 9,000 thermal wells and springs and 271 communities with a geothermal resource greater than 50ºC. -
California's geothermal power plants provided 54.9% of the State’s electricity.
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DOE and industry worked together on the Geothermal Resource Exploration. It was a cooperative effort to find, and evaluate, additional geothermal resources throughout the western United States.
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By 2004, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Iceland, Kenya, and the Philippines had significant geothermal energy outputs that accounted for at least 15 percent of each countries’ energy production
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Geothermal energy costs dropped from $.10 - .16 per kilowatt hour to $.5 - .8 per kilowatt hour.
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As of early 2005, the United States was the world’s top generator, at 2,564 megawatts, followed by the Philippines (1,930 megawatts), Mexico (953 megawatts), Indonesia (797 megawatts), Italy (791 megawatts), Japan (535 megawatts), New Zealand (435 megawatts), and Iceland (202 megawatts), and fifteen more nations (producing fewer than 200 megawatts each).
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The U.S. geothermal industry became a $1.5 billion a year business that involved electricity generation and thermal energy in direct use such as indoor heating, greenhouses, food drying, aquaculture.
Alaska installed a 200 kilowatt power plant that used low-temperature (74ºC) geothermal water along with cooling water (4ºC). -
The Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) of 1978 was promoting greater use of renewable energy, cogeneration and small power projects.
